"Any system of ideas with an abstraction at its center--an abstraction which assigns you a role or duties--is an ideology. An ideology provides those who accept it with a falseconsciousness, a necessary component of which is other-directedness. This leads those who accept the ideology to behave as 'objects' rather than 'subjects,' to allow themselves to be used rather than to act to attain their own desires. The various ideologies are all structured around different abstractions, yet all serve the interests of a dominant (or aspiring dominant) class by giving individuals (though the term hardly seems appropriate--'members of the herd' is perhaps more accurate) a sense of purpose in sacrifice, suffering, and submission.

Religious ideology is the oldest example: the fantastic projection called 'God' is the Supreme Subject of the cosmos, acting on every human being as 'His' object."

An important (and perhaps defining) feature of ideologies is in how those who disagree or who point out inconvenient facts, have other theories are treated. Since the ideology must be right, the dissident must be wrong in their thinking. Not only that, but as they are wrong in ideology but often right in practice, and this truth cannot be acknowledged, they are dangerous.

Rather than a pragmatic reassessment of the situation or a rational debate, or even an acceptance of diversity, anyone who is at odds with the ideology must be neutralised. They are either criminal by virtue of their opinion, immature and in need of education, deviant and in need of readjustment, or deranged and in need of treatment.

No matter how good the ideals of an ideology, its inflexibility dictates that it will not work as well as a pragmatic, flexible set of ideas and theories, and the disparity with reality induces either cynicism or cult-like blind fervour. I'm not sure, but perhaps the only states that need an ideology (as opposed to a more flexible political method) are totalitarian ones.

Calling an ideology an excuse to oppress implies that either the state develops the ideology, or rides to power on the back of the ideology as a ploy to gain or keep power; or that the sincere ideals decay, and nothing is left but the power. Beware of people who want to fix all the world's problems - they are the cause of most of the world's problems.

The 20th century has seen the failure of ideology – not just particular ideologies, but of ideology in general. But is that simply because the successful systems of thought have escaped this derogatory label? IMHO things that work, do so for pragmatic reasons and are thus strategies not ideologies. A case in point is that it is actually hard to find people to sing the unreserved praises of Capitalism, even though it is in various forms the dominant economic system. When megacorp inc starts to sell you an ideology, that is when you should start to worry.

Tiefling says: I feel that you're employing a definition of ideology which makes your conclusion inevitable. Perhaps, but it is a good definition, and no one else here is employing it, then it needs to be noded.

A theory of the origin of ideas which derives them exclusively from sensation.

⇒ By a double blunder in philosophy and Greek, id'eologie . . . has in France become the name peculiarly distinctive of that philosophy of mind which exclusively derives our knowledge from sensation.
Sir W. Hamilton.